College, University, Special Libraries Division of the Alabama Library Association

Archive for June, 2008

I have to admit that much of what technology has wrought seems, well, useless to me. Twitteris a good example. The whole idea of “tweets” (messages that can be no longer than 140 characters) leaves me shaking my head. Like, what genius figured out that there were people who would actually enjoy sending messages to and receiving messages from dozens and, even, hundreds of people along the lines of “yeah me too!” Still, leave it to librarians to figure out a way to put Twitterto good use.

I just started a new Twitter account called @ACPLLibraryCamp to publicize Library Camp 2008. I started adding people by going to a famous person’s Twitter account, looking at their followers, and following their followers. Within about 30 minutes, three more famous people were following ACPLLibraryCamp. That’s pretty darn quick! I am hoping to use Twitter as one way to publicize our Library Camp. I also sent e-mails to a bunch of people I don’t know, but that was tough because in most cases I had to dig for them. Twitter is so much quicker!

We seem to be incredibly quick to find innovative ways to make use of even silly (seemingly) technology. Melissa gets three approving “tweets” from me. You can read more about “Library Camp 2008” at her blog too!

In the short time this blog has existed, nothing I have posted has been viewed more often than the delightful story about the library-themed wedding invitations. It doesn’t even have close competition. Thinking about that inspired me to see what other interesting library-related stories I could find. I got to rummaging around the Internet and found some gems. Here are two that I thought everyone might enjoy:

What to do on a dreary, winter weekend? Well, the New York Times recommended a trip to one of New York’s libraries in an article entitled, A Bookworm’s Holiday. It is an odd choice of title, since the article really talks about how much more than books libraries have to offer-

Ableak winter weekend is a great time to haunt the city’s libraries, when they seem to serve almost as much as museums and performance halls as repositories of the written word.

If you decide to follow their advice, you might want to stay at the Library Hotel in Manhatten. It has been designed for bibliophiles:

Within the hotel, floor and room numbers are dispensed with and replaced by Dewey Decimal code. Following the traditional library cataloging system, each of the 10 floors corresponds to one of the 10 categories originated by Melvil Dewey. Floors are devoted to math and science, technology, philosophy and literature, among others. On each floor are subclassifications. On the religion floor, room number 1200.005 is devoted to Native American culture and spirituality. The titles on the bedside floor-to-ceiling shelves include “Crazy Horse” by Larry McMurtry, “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse” by Peter Matthiessen and “Southern Cheyenne Women’s Songs” by Virginia Giglio.

Intrigued? I found a review of the hotel in Papercuts along with color photos, narrative and as much information about the books to be found in the hotel, as well as in near-by bookstores, as any bibliophile could wish. I confess. I’m sold and ready to book a stay there.